One of the most wonderful things about my London semester was the closeness of this great park to my office. It meant I could spend almost as much time there as I wanted to, and I certainly didn't mind taking strolls there with almost all of my guests. Coincidentally having the same name as a street I lived on in Houston when I first graduated from college, I had a ready-made affinity for Hyde Park. (Note for complete accuracy: some of these photos were technically taken in Kensington Gardens rather than Hyde Park proper, but since this difference isn't obvious except on maps, I'm ignoring it here.)

I headed over to the park with my lunch before my first class and its peaceful ambiance went a long way toward curing my neophyte teacher jitters. That's the day I took this photo, featuring not only a park scene but also some of the apartment buildings that border the greenspace. What I wouldn't give to live in a place like this. And, of course, I'd have to give a lot, monthly!

The immaculately-kept lawns are of course a Hyde Park byword, but I was usually more taken with the lovely trees. Here are two shots taken in October, when they'd started turning but hadn't lost too many of their leaves:

Here's a particularly distinctive tree. There were a few like this, but I was never able to learn what they're called:

You can really see the march of the seasons in these three photographs, all taken in the same area of the park. The months were September, October and December:

I don't have a good panoramic shot for November, but here's one focused on a single tree near the Serpentine, in that month. I'm looking toward central London in the photo, which explains the large number of construction cranes in the background!

Speaking of the Serpentine, the water features of Hyde Park are among its most attractive areas. Here on the top is another glimpse of the Serpentine, showing more of the water, with a couple of photos taken near the Round Pond on the bottom.

A newer water feature, this unusual fountain, memorializes Princess Diana, who of course lived practically in the park, in Kensington Palace. Here is a photo of her fountain, and one of the plaques which idenitify a route through the entire park that's named in her honor.

You can see many more photos of Hyde Park in this Flickr set.

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